


Gone and Changed

by cwb



Series: Just Like That [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Americana, Americanisms, Best Friends, Blow Jobs in a Car, Boyfriends, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Car Sex, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, High School, Hot Weather, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Pining Sherlock, Sex in a Car, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Summer, Summer Vacation, Swimming, Teen Angst, Teen John, Teen Sherlock, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:04:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwb/pseuds/cwb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock are best friends, until John goes and changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone and Changed

**Author's Note:**

> It's Fall in the midwestern United States. A few weekends ago I took my kids to a farm in the back of beyond, where there was a 33-acre corn maze, a petting zoo, pig races, pumpkin drops, a train, bouncy hills, sweet corn, kettle corn, and all things related to harvests and Halloween. 
> 
> While there, I started to think about how Americana it all was, in a way that only the Midwest can pull off. I mean, sure, each region of this massive country has its own version of Americana, but the Midwest's version, what with the farms and orchards and rolling fields, is special. I also started to think, as one does, about John and Sherlock, and what it would be like for them growing up best friends on neighboring farms.
> 
> Once the idea took root, this fic would not be denied. I know that there are American johnlock stories out there, but this one is intended to 1. give the American fans some relatable, "I remember that!" moments, and 2. give the rest of the world a little taste of all things Midwest-American.
> 
> The following four paragraphs are from [this Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States), and are intended to give the non-Americans a brief overview of the area:
>
>>  
>> 
>> _"The Midwestern United States, or the Midwest, is one of the four geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, occupying the northern central part of the country._
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> _Though the region is traditionally defined in a number of ways, the Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin._
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> _Agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of local economies in the Midwest, accounting for billions of dollars worth of exports and thousands of jobs. The area consists of some of the richest farming land in the world. The region's fertile soil combined with the steel plow has made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of grain and cereal crops, including corn, wheat, soybeans, oats, and barley, to become known today as the nation's "breadbasket."_
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> _The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwest where corn has, since the 1850s, been the predominant crop, replacing the native tall grasses. The "Corn Belt" region is defined typically to include Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan, western Ohio, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota, and parts of Missouri. The region is characterized by relatively level land and deep, fertile soils, high in organic matter."_  
> 
> 
> As a side note, the United States is 3,794,083 sq miles (9,826,630 sq km), and I'd say the Midwest takes up about 20-25% of that land. However, even throughout those 12 states, regional differences are vast. Subcultures were significantly influenced by the immigrants that settled here, some from other parts of the US (the Ulster-Scots Presbyterians of Pennsylvania, the Dutch Reformed, Quakers, and the Congregationalists of Connecticut), as well as those from Europe (mostly German, Irish, Italian, and Polish).
> 
> So, that's your mini-lesson on the Midwestern United States. It might help paint the scene.
> 
> Thank you kindly, KarlyAnne, for the beta!
> 
> I am [conversationswith ~~benedict~~ johnlock](https://conversationswithjohnlock.tumblr.com) on tumblr.

Sherlock recognized the truck before it came into view: ‘67 Ford F-100, from over at the Watson’s place. He looked up from the desk in time to see the red pickup drive past, slowing to clear the worst of the ruts in the packed dirt road. A cloud of dust lifted and expanded. He didn’t wait to watch it resettle.

He turned back to his calculations, dozens of them scratched out on a legal pad balanced on a stack of open grain catalogs. Through the open window he heard two of the farmhands arguing over whose turn it was to clean out the stalls.

…

Mrs. Hudson rapped on the office door, and he lifted his head to see that it had gone dark. He hummed entry over the pencil eraser pressed to his lower lip, and she carried in a tray of chicken and dumplings, a mug of black coffee, and a slab of cobbler. He snapped a cloth napkin down over his lap, and she took a seat across the desk from him.

He ate his supper while she updated him on the state of things, rattling off worker headcounts, feedlot expenses, silage estimates, and the like. He interjected when he needed to, but hardly anything warranted his feedback. She could’ve run the place blindfolded, and had done since before he left for college. Still, it felt good to be back for the summer, to put his hand back in.

Twenty minutes later, she stood, brushed down her skirt, and wrapped her cardigan tighter around her trim waist. Instead of leaving, she started fidgeting with a paperweight on the edge of the desk. Sherlock's fingers itched to straighten it.

“Sherlock …”

He studied the forkful of chicken in his hand, then set it back down, and waited. Inevitable, really.

“It’s just that, well, Dorothy knows you’re home, and …”

“And?”

“Have you called over yet?”

“To see Mrs. Watson?”

“Don't play dumb with me, Sherlock Holmes. He’s your best friend.”

“Thanks for supper, Mrs. Hudson. I’ll wash up when I’m done.”

She set her jaw and gave him a curt nod, then eased out, closing the door softly behind her.

…

Sherlock punched his pillows into shape before slipping into the narrow bed. The sheets felt cool on his shower-warmed skin, and gave off the dry-sweet tang of laundry lines and linen closets. The quilt was thin and patched in spots, stained where he’d spilled things over the years. Yoohoo, Coca-Cola, Pabst. The quilt smelled like his life here.

On the other side of the window screen, the moon shone bright on four hundred and sixty acres of corn and soybeans.

 

…

It’s not that he hadn’t thought about John Watson. It’s that he never stopped thinking about John Watson.

John had never been easy to ignore, even when they were children, what with him popping over to the Holmes’ farm whenever he’d finished his chores. Sherlock had tried to stay where he was comfortable, on the far side of civil, but John Watson had remained a child-sized force unto himself, and unto Sherlock, too, because that’s where John Watson had aimed himself.

John had broken through Sherlock’s façade, bit by bit. He'd persisted on the school bus, the baseball field, in their FFA classes, until those fissures widened and Sherlock's guarded infrastructure crumbled. Caution was replaced with respect, and then affection, and then friendship. Gifted with his first and only friend, Sherlock had expanded his protective bubble over John, placing a value on the other boy equal to, if not greater than, his own family.

It went on like that for years, the two of them inseparable. They studied together, played together, ate together. They slept over at each other’s houses, and were disciplined by each other’s parents. They detasseled corn together each summer, the most odious of tasks, along with dozens of migrant workers. They mucked the pigs at the Watson's, and gathered eggs at the Holmes'. It was rare to hear one of their names without hearing the other immediately after.

Then, just like that, over a weekend in March of their senior year of high school, John Watson went and changed. On Friday he was the same, but on Monday he was different. Sherlock knew it shouldn’t be possible, but he could’ve sworn John’s shoulders were broader, and his forearms more heavily veined. His jaw was squarer. His thighs were stronger, thicker in his Levi’s, and those Levi's now cupped him just so. Just like that, Sherlock found himself sitting next to his best friend in the bleachers during lunch period, wondering what those thighs would look like, trembling, on either side of his bobbing head.

Just like that.

…

Sherlock was seeing the veterinarian off when his phone pinged. He waited until she’d pulled down the drive and turned left onto CR-18, before fishing it out of his back pocket.

_I’m coming over, asshole._

Sherlock smiled, then frowned, then sighed.

…

The race through finals and graduation had helped keep his riotous feelings at bay. Afterwards, they’d found themselves staring down twelve weeks of summer break. Chores were easy enough to get out of the way before noon, and then, while the corn grew and the sun burned up everything else, they’d meet, maybe listen to music, or hang out in the QuikMart parking lot, or head to the quarry off Black Bridge Road.

More often than not, they went to the quarry.

They’d throw a cooler of A&W and Mrs. Hudson’s cheese and salami sandwiches into the back of the F-100, leaving the doors open until the interior wasn’t capable of frying eggs. Then they’d climb in, and John would curse the clutch, jerking the stick shift from first to second to third, never needing fourth on the back roads, while Sherlock tried to find something decent on the push-button radio.

Going to the quarry had never posed problems before, but then John had gone and changed, and now the hair under his arms was thicker, and there was more leading down from his bellybutton, and between his legs. He smelled like sweat, but more than that, too, and Sherlock found it altogether intoxicating. He often missed entire sentences when John talked, lost in thought about where those smells emanated from, and how he might get closer.

John had gone and shed the last of his baby fat, and was all muscle and tendon, pecs and quads and glutes and lats, abs and delts and calves. He’d gone and made himself into a man, and Sherlock thought he was more man than any of the men he might’ve noticed before, before he resolved not to notice.

So, they’d head out there and strip off in the shade of the ancient Cottonwood, talking the whole time about nothing, because stripping off in silence would've been strange, and then they’d run off the edge of the rock overhang together, flying, splashing down into the cold, clear water.

Sherlock would flip his hair out of his eyes and slick it back with his fingers, and John would push waves of water at him and try to mess it all up. Sometimes Sherlock would swim to the bottom and look for fossils in the sandstone, and John, he’d float on his back, calling out the shapes of the clouds, until he got bored and resorted to rough housing. He’d put Sherlock in chokeholds, drape himself over his back, drag him under, make him wrestle his way free. When John did those things, Sherlock would try not to imagine how similar the positions of their entwined limbs were to other activities, but he usually failed.

Sometimes John would race him to the natural stone steps leading up and out of the water, and if Sherlock got there first, John would grab him low around the hips and tackle him back into the water, and for those few seconds that John’s chest was pressed to his back and his palms were sliding across his wet skin, Sherlock would disintegrate and cease to exist altogether.

…

“Why haven’t you called, you prick?”

“Hello to you, too, John. I’ve only been back a few days.”

“Right. And I’m sure you were just about to call.”

Sherlock fiddled with the keychain in his hand and tried to tally his emotions, positive and negative. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.

“What the fuck is going on with you? You don’t return my messages, you don’t email. Fifty-seven texts, Sherlock, fifty-seven this semester, and you didn’t answer one of them.”

"I was busy."

John snorted. "You were busy."

John rested one hand on a canted hip, and rubbed the other over the back of his neck, staring down at the distance between them.

“Just tell me what I did wrong. Can you at least do that?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sherlock meant it. John had done everything right, everything just fine. But he’d also gone and given shape to abstract words in Sherlock's head, words like _want — yearn — lust — need — ache_ , and Sherlock needed to stay away, or those words were going to force themselves out of his mouth.

Sherlock Holmes was so in love with John Watson he could barely see through the fog of it.

“So what is it? Sherlock, this is ridiculous. It’s fucked up. I mean … shit, you know I’m not good at this stuff, but I’m kinda past the point of caring, ya know? You’re my best friend. You’re important to me.”

“I’m still your friend.”

John laughed through his nose, an exhalation of doubt.

“You don’t act like it.”

“I gotta go, John. I’ve got a lot to do.”

He left John standing next to his pickup in the driveway, arms folded across his chest, hips tilted forward, head down.

…

_Goldfinger's on tonight. Come over?_

…

_Grab a bite?_

...

_Going to the quarry. Join me?_

...

_Explain to me again how this is friendship?_

...

_Fuck you._ **  
**

...

He finished unloading the flatbed, lugging bales of alfalfa hay into the barn, then stacking them against a wall.

Sweet smelling hay dust was lodged up his nose and in his hair, plastered to his sweaty skin. The itch was unbearable, and the heat was inescapable, at least 95°, and humid as hell. He pinched a bottle of Green River from the mini-fridge in the barn's makeshift office, and grabbed the keys to the family station wagon.

The vinyl seat stuck to his shoulders and the backs of his thighs, and the steering wheel scorched his palms, but the anticipated relief of the quarry was salve enough. Maybe the water would wash away the weight of his self-imposed isolation, and maybe it would steel his resolve. Maybe it would shake free dreams of his best friend's chest heaving against his splayed fingers, and his tongue in his mouth, and his ass set down in his lap.

He was so screwed.

He parked under the Cottonwood, emptied his pockets, and tossed his phone and keys into the glovebox. He rolled down the windows, one by one, the slam of each closing door reverberating through the air, loud thunks that he felt behind his solar plexus.

Swim it off, Holmes.

He stood at the edge and looked down. The water's surface was still as glass, reflecting back the reach of branches, one stray cloud, his own mop of hair.

He thought about the last time he and John had come here, days before they each left for dorm rooms and orientation sessions.

Sherlock had vibrated with unresolved energy, climbing up and out of the pit, cannonballing back in, over and over, while John floated, arms and legs spread, his eyes never leaving Sherlock as he jumped, swam, climbed, jumped, swam, climbed.

"You okay?" he'd called out as Sherlock readied himself to jump off again, toes curling over the edge, drops of water evaporating almost as soon as they landed on the hot rock on either side of him.

"Fine."

"You don't seem fine."

"You're an expert on fine, now?"

"I'm an expert on you."

Sherlock had closed his eyes, and leapt.

He blinked those images away, and looked up. The cloud was gone. He spread his arms out, ready for flight.

The water rushed to cover him, shocking, his mind momentarily blank. He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and under his arms, between his legs. The day's grime sloughed away, and he shot up, leaving the crystal clear silence for a lungful of air.

In the distance he heard the crunch of rubber on gravel, gears downshifting, the rumble of a V8 208hp engine. The truck came closer, then the engine cut out, spluttering and hissing before letting out a final few bangs. A door creaked open, and slammed shut.

Sherlock took a deep breath, ducked under, and started counting. He couldn't outcount this, but still, he stayed submerged. He pushed his arms through the resistance of the water, forcing his descent, and looked up toward the overhang. John stood at the edge, a rippling mirage in faded jeans and a red polo, hands framing his hips. Sherlock let a few bubbles escape.

John gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, then tossed it down beside him. Sherlock's lungs burned. John undid the five rivets of his button-fly jeans, and pushed those down, then toed them and his shoes off and kicked them aside. Sherlock's lungs screamed.

Sherlock watched John slip his thumbs under the waistband of his boxer briefs, and Sherlock's vision started to blur. He burst to the surface just as John lifted his left leg and yanked his underwear over his ankle, and threw those down, too.

Sherlock sucked in air, and John dived, a flash of strong back and firm ass before he sliced through the water.

Sherlock tread water and calculated where John might reappear. It was much closer than he'd approximated. Three feet away, close enough to feel the currents John's legs created. John wiped a hand over his face, pushed his hair back, and blew a spray of water between them. Drops of water sat on his shoulders and collarbones, and clung to his eyelashes, dark and spiked into clumps. John's eyes were a very angry shade of blue. A furious shade.

"We're not leaving here 'til this is settled."

"There's nothing to 'settle,' John."

"Like fuck there isn't, Sherlock."

They swam in place, watching each other.

"I haven't done anything to piss you off? Nothing to push you away?"

"No."

"No, but there's definitely something wrong, something stuck in your craw."

Sherlock didn't deny this. Something was stuck. He was stuck.

"Right. I’ve done _nothing_ , and this is what I get. Do nothing, lose everything, yeah? I wonder then, what would happen if I _did_ do something. I've got nothing to lose now, do I? What would Sherlock Holmes do, if I did this?"

John swam closer. Their legs bumped and tangled, and Sherlock threw his arms out, wider, to keep from going under. John’s eyes held his, looking for a response, but Sherlock could only stare back, absorbing all the details of John, this close. Variations of color in John’s eyes, and the individual hairs of his eyebrows, and the creases in his lips. There was stubble coming in on his chin and jaw.

“And this?”

John wrapped one arm around Sherlock’s waist and tugged him close, and then it was the brush of hair against his legs, coarser along their shins, so smooth where inner thigh touched inner thigh. It was John’s hand stroking his lower back, and the silk of their cocks bobbing against hips and bellies, there, then gone.

He wouldn’t survive this if it'd been designed to provoke a reaction, something to jumpstart their atrophied friendship. Sherlock would drown in it.

John slipped his hand up into the wet curls at the back of Sherlock’s head, and surged forward. Sherlock felt the expanse of John’s chest against his, and a second later, John’s mouth, lower lip, upper lip, a hint of tongue between them. John pressed. Sherlock tilted and opened and nudged, and it deepened, sweet and wet, growing into an urgent thing between them. They both kicked hard to stay afloat, Sherlock’s hands on either side of John’s face, John’s hands sliding down and cupping Sherlock’s ass, pulling him up. Sherlock wrapped his legs around John’s hips, and John shuddered against him.

Kissing John was the most sensually intimate act of Sherlock's life. To taste John like this, to lick into his mouth, and welcome him in, was the ripe culmination of all they’d ever been and shared. It was new, but not, because it was so entirely them, an experience that could never be duplicated with another. It was them.

They sank.

Sherlock opened his eyes and pulled back. Between them tiny bubbles shot to the surface. His hair, weightless and waving, framed John in front of him. Behind John, the underwater world of the quarry faded to black.

John reached out, fingers arced, and touched Sherlock’s face. His fingertips trailed down his cheek to the square corner of his jaw, down his neck, and over his chest. His hand came to rest on Sherlock’s waist, with his fingers curled around his side.

John nodded, a slow movement, and Sherlock realized he must have had a questioning expression on his face, brow furrowed and eyes worried. He tried to relax, and pulled one side of his mouth up into a tentative smile. John smiled back, so tender, so hopeful, and Sherlock reached out and touched two fingers to John’s mouth, then pointed up.

They resurfaced.

John grabbed Sherlock's hand and tugged, swimming backwards, not letting go. They reached the outcropping of ledges they used as steps, and Sherlock found himself sitting, back to the stone wall, water sloshing around his hips. John stood lower, waist deep in the water, hands on Sherlock's knees.

John burst into words.

"God, Sherlock, I'm sorry, but please don't say it's a mistake, please, don't explain this away. I know I pushed you last summer, I know I came on strong. I just, I couldn't stop touching you, watching you, God, I was going out of my mind with it, how one day you were just Sherlock, and the next, you were just, _God_ , everything, so fucking gorgeous, so –"

"Me? You couldn't stop – what? You think that's why – oh god. No. No, that wasn’t it at all."

He watched John's hands caressing his thighs, tracing the lines of his quadriceps under goosebumped flesh.

"It was you, John, you're the one who, you just, you changed, all of a sudden you were so, you have no idea, no idea at all. I wanted you so bad, all the time, _all_ the time, wanted to touch you, smell you, wanted all that rough housing to be something else, but I didn’t think you –"

"We're goddamn fucking idiots," John whispered, and then they were kissing again, grabbing handfuls of each other, reading each other's bodies with fingers and palms. The quarry wall was hot and rough on Sherlock's back, and John was cool and smooth at his front, and it was so easy to let his legs part more, to pull John in and press his thighs to John's waist, and squeeze.

John touched his chest, his nipples, his belly, letting his fingers drop to tease along the edge of Sherlock's pubic hair, the follicles there tingling, murmuring messages to his groin.

It took every ounce of self-control he had, but Sherlock grabbed John’s wrist and pulled his hand away.

"Sherlock, lemme touch you, please? I need to touch you, so bad."

"Not here. Not like this. I need to see you, touch all of you."

“Yeah, okay, yeah. Your car? The back of your car –”

“Yes, good, that's ... good.”

John trailed his fingers up Sherlock’s arms, and they slowly disentangled, and climbed out. They darted around, grabbing their discarded shirts and shorts and jeans and shoes, throwing it all onto the front seat of the station wagon. Sherlock swung open the rear door and climbed into the back of the car, John coming in after him, pulling the door shut, and collapsing onto Sherlock.

John was heavy on top of him, solid, delicious. Their movements were frantic, scrambling and groping, their kisses filthy wet things while their hips rutted and rolled, desperate.

Sherlock whispered into John's mouth. “You want to touch me?”

“God, yes.”

Sherlock reached for one of John’s hands, and rubbed his thumb over the wrist bone, the first set of knuckles, the second set. He entwined their fingers and guided them down, slow, his heart pounding out some crazy song of _yes_. He was hard and aching, even before they got there, and then he was squeezing John's hand around himself, and letting go.

They moaned.

"My god, Sherlock, oh my god, you feel so good."

John's hand was light on him, tentative, while above, he murmured adoration into Sherlock’s mouth, lips bumping together, apart, noses nudging. Sherlock held onto John’s shoulders, panting, and John kissed him harder, his tongue flicking and probing as the movements of his hand gained confidence.

Sherlock looked down between them, at John’s hand jerking him off, and cursed under his breath.

"S'alright, s'alright," John crooned.

“John, don’t stop, oh god, please, don’t stop.”

“Look at you, so fucking gorgeous. Gonna make you come.”

Half a dozen tugs later, Sherlock was chanting a string of yeses, each one longer and higher than the last, until he was silently screaming through his climax.

John held him as he shook apart, and kissed his eyelids and cheeks as he came back to himself. Sherlock opened his eyes, and smiled, lazy and drunk on his orgasm. He laughed, and kissed John, soft and slow, until John’s kisses grew desperate.

Sherlock rolled them over, lying by John’s side, and sucked little love bites down John’s neck, then wriggled lower and licked and kissed his way across John's chest and nipples. He pulled one into his mouth, and John bucked and hit his head on the backseat.

"Fuck, do that again. Yeah, the other one, too. Ohhh, fuck."

Sherlock nibbled and licked and sucked while John writhed, then he abandoned John’s nipples for a bigger prize, and slid lower. He explored John’s ribs and belly and hips as he went, until he reached John's pelvis, and then John’s fingers went tight in Sherlock's damp hair, holding him in place.

"Gonna make me come. Haven't even touched my prick, and you're gonna make me come so fucking hard. _Fuck_."

Sherlock inhaled, deep. John's erection was just an inch under Sherlock's chin.

"You smell so good. Let me do this for you, John. I want to. I've wanted to for so long. Let me suck you."

John's grip on Sherlock's hair loosened, and he slid his hands down to Sherlock's shoulders, across his upper back.

"Fuck. I won't last."

Sherlock looked up at John, and licked his lips. “I don’t really care.”

John looked down, and nodded.

John's cock was satin on Sherlock's lower lip. He let the head rest there, feeling its weight, then he brought the tip of his tongue out, and dabbed into the slit.

"Oh, _fuck_."

John spread his legs, one knee bent up against the side of the car, the other up and over Sherlock, so that he was bracketed between John's thighs.

Sherlock slid lower and buried his face between John's legs, nuzzling his balls and inner thigh.

" _Sherlock_."

Sherlock ran the tip of his nose up the length of John's cock, opened his mouth, and took him in.

"Ohhh. Ohh _god_. You – you're – you're –"

Sherlock hummed and sucked. Now he knew exactly what his best friend's thighs would look like, trembling, on either side of his bobbing head. They looked magnificent.

"Sherlock – yeah – oh god –"

Sherlock felt John go even harder against his tongue. He pulled off and wrapped his fist around John's wet shaft, pumping short, hard strokes over the frenulum and head, and John pushed his foot against the side window, leveraging his lower half off the floor, gut clenched, chasing his climax.

"Just like that, just ... like ... that."

Sherlock sucked the crown back into his mouth, and John jerked and grunted half of Sherlock's name, then tensed. Sherlock stared, eyes wide, mouth slack, as John came, and came, and came. John grimaced through it, neck arched, every muscle strained, then slumped back down, shattered.

Sherlock climbed on top of him and buried his face under John's chin, sighing as John's arms came around him.

A breeze moved through the car's open windows, and the cicadas began to sing.

They slept, curled in each other’s arms, and when they woke, hours later, they did it all over again.

...

"Come home for Thanksgiving."

"I will. I'll skip my chemistry labs on Wednesday, and come on Tuesday."

"Yeah, okay, good. I'll try to come back that Tuesday, too."

Sherlock dug his hands into his pockets and grinned.

"What're'ya smiling at, you gorgeous fucker?"

"You know, John, Harvard has an excellent school of medicine."

"You don't say."

"Mm. Better weather than Minnesota, too."

"Hardly."

The sun was setting, leaving a progression of pale orange and pink in its wake.

“You’re gonna answer my calls this time, right?”

“Yes. And your emails, and your fifty-seven texts. And I’ll even send some of my own.”

“Good.”

John took Sherlock’s chin in his hand and planted a soft kiss on his lips. Sherlock answered with a nose rub, then wrapped his arms around John and hugged him close, chest to chest, hips to hips. John settled his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, and his arms around his waist, and Sherlock exhaled, and squeezed harder.

“Don’t go yet, John.”

“Don’t. I’m having a hard enough time leaving as it is.”

“Eighty-two days.”

“Shh. We’ll Skype. We’ll talk. We’ll have epic phone sex.”

“Not the same.”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, Sherlock,” John said, pulling back enough to meet his eye. “If you pull that shit again, shutting me out, I’ll drive this piece of shit to Cambridge and beat the crap out of you.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat, or a motivation?”

“Prick.”

Sherlock let go, and John reached behind him for the door handle. He pushed his backpack over and slid in, buckled up, and started the ignition.

Sherlock rested his forearms on the roof of the truck, and leaned into the open window.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up. For coming after me.”

“You’re welcome.”

John put the truck in gear, winked, and pulled away. At the end of the drive he stopped, adjusted his rear view mirror, and turned left onto CR-18. Sherlock waited until the dust settled, then walked back into the house.

The worst year of his life was over. Just like that, his best friend had gone and changed, changed into the love of his life.

 **  
** **-END-**

I didn't grow up in the Midwest, but I did grow up in a place where vintage pickup trucks are driven both as work vehicles, and as an act of love. I drove a pickup for about four years, but found it impractical once I moved to a place with lots of snow.

Yoo-Hoo is a chocolate soda drink that was very popular when I was a kid, and is still popular in certain parts of the country.

Pabst is a very regional beer, originally brewed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Green River is another regional drink. It's lime flavored, and originated in Chicago in the early 1900s. I'm sure you can find it other places, but I've never seen it outside of this part of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> **Glossary, of sorts:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  **Supper:** Supper and dinner are different. Supper is the last meal of the day, but not necessarily the biggest. On a working farm, dinner is the biggest meal, and served at lunchtime. I think.
> 
>  **FFA:** Future Farmers of America.
> 
>  **Detasseling corn:** a friend of mine grew up on a corn farm and she said this was the most heinous thing she ever had to do in her life. Basically, you have to pluck the tassle off the top of the corn stalk and lay it at the base of the stalk so that the corn will pollinate. Or something.
> 
>  **"in the bleachers"** isn't really a term to define, but it's a concept of sorts. Most US high schools have football teams, and most of those football teams have football fields to play on, and most of those fields have bleachers on either side of them. You can sit in the bleachers and hang out, or you can go under the bleachers and make out.
> 
>  **CR-18:** lots of the roads in rural parts of the midwest are called "Country Road-Number", or CR-insert number here" instead of Such and Such Road.
> 
>  **QuickMart:** convenience store, like Circle K, 7-11.
> 
>  **A &W:** popular brand of rootbeer soda.
> 
> Please ask questions if something is unclear, and please leave comments BECAUSE I LOVE THEM.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Just Like That (Gone and Changed)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238632) by [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)
  * [Wits on Tap poetry remix of Just Like That](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6599317) by [justacookieofacumberbatch (buffyholic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffyholic/pseuds/justacookieofacumberbatch)




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